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Joint research and cooperation projects

The University of Stuttgart has made research that transcends borders between departments and disciplines one of its bedrock principles. On these pages, we introduce the most important current joint research efforts to you.

Joint research projects play a key role in actualizing the Stuttgart Way of interdisciplinary and integrative cooperation that is embedded in the University of Stuttgart’s mission statement. This is why the University of Stuttgart supports numerous joint research groups that cut across departments and disciplines. Scientists from different departments network to focus on university-wide research priorities and attract funding for new coordinated joint research projects. For many of these joint research projects, participation by external cooperation partners contributes importantly to the scientific work.

Bifurcated simulation of cell signaling paths (SimTech)

Photo: Universität Stuttgart/SimTech

Joint research projects in the modeling and simulation technology area

Simulations and modeling pervade all of science and increasingly also industrial applications and daily life. Simulation technologies are among the high points of University of Stuttgart research activities. This is particularly manifest in the Cluster of Excellence Simulation Technologies (SimTech) which brings together excellence-level expertise from the fields of mathematics, engineering science, computing, and the natural sciences.

The SimTech Excellence Cluster received funding under the Federal Excellence Initiative. Researchers in the SimTech Excellence Cluster work on making computer simulations more powerful, forecasts more reliable, and visualizations even more precise. During the funding period, SimTech is integrated into the Stuttgart Research Center for Simulation Technology, the platform for efficient, comprehensive development of scientific methods and applications in all areas of the modelling and simulation sciences.

Joint research projects in the field of new materials

IQST is an institute-spanning, interdisciplinary center in the quantum research field in which the Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Research, the University of Stuttgart, and the University of Ulm participate. The consortium’s aim is to make use of the enormous technological potential quantum physics holds for engineering applications. To this end, researchers from the natural sciences (especially physics and chemistry), mathematics, and the engineering sciences work together closely in the Center, simultaneously cooperating directly with industry.

In the SCoPE SRC physicists and engineers from a total of twelve institutes of the University of Stuttgart bundle their efforts and forge cooperative links with industry. Their goal is a complete the research and development cycle from photonic fundamentals to innovative developments and applications. The research themes range from quantum structures and quantum optics through metamaterials and plasmonics to application-centric task definitions in subwavelength optics as well as diffractive and active optics.

The SRI for materials characterization and analysis grapples with questions of energy efficiency and resource planning and works in this area on the ever more complex technologies for manufacturing building component and infrastructure. A key core element in this is utilizing and, especially, characterizing materials that are optimized for specific applications.

SRI Space Radiation Impacts delves into modelling and simulation of radiation impacting technological and biological system during future space travel missions. The work is split into four research groups in the following subject areas: space travel, radiation simulation, biological systems, and material behavior.

Joint research projects in the field design and technology of lasting living spaces

The SRC for Architecture: Integrative Design and Adaptive Building” is an interdisciplinary network that bundles complementary research activities and competences in the university’s research priority area “Architecture and Adaptive Building”, and aims to interlink it with further research fields such as computer science, robotics, production and systems engineering, as well as the social and cultural sciences.

Joint reserach projects in complex systems and communication

The center is dedicated to department-spanning and interdisciplinary research and teaching in systems biology. It aims to achieve a holistic system understanding by analyzing individual biological system components, with the ultimate goal of making the leap from a qualitatively descriptive to a quantitative, theory-based, predictive biology. A special attribute of the Center’s networked system biology activities at the University of Stuttgart is the close cooperation between the biological, engineering, and systems sciences.

The Stuttgart Research Focus Language and Cognition is a facility established by the University of Stuttgart for the advancement of interdisciplinary research in the fields of linguistics and cognition. The focus is on a joint research project unique in the German-speaking realm that brings together theoretical linguistics (Institute of Linguistics) und computer linguistics (Institute of Natural Language Processing).

The Text Studies research center is dedicated to methodological reflection on new approaches in the text-oriented disciplines. Beyond that, it is expected to contribute techniques of textual analysis, description, and interpretation and to bridge the gaps between different text-based disciplines. The four areas of concentration are hermeneutics, material studies, digital humanities, and image.

Joint research groups in the field of integrated product and production design

The research campusARENA2036 (Active Research Environment for the Next generation of Automobiles) builds a bridge between research and development in the areas of lightweight construction and innovative manufacturing technologies.

Lidar scan of the wind speed field Windpark Baltic I in the Baltic Sea (SWE)

Joint research projects for energy supply and the environment

Managing resources sustainably and efficiently – be they commodities, materials, energy, and water – is the subject of multi-faceted research at the University of Stuttgart. Many university departments and their partners contribute to it with innovative approaches and technologies.

In the WindForS wind energy research cluster, the University of Stuttgart, University of Tübingen, Technical University Munich, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Aalen and Esslingen universities of applied science, and the Baden-Wuerttemberg Center for Solar Energy and H2 Research bundle their expertise in the field of wind energy research. The consortium members cooperate both in research and the areas of graduate education, post-graduate training and continuing education.

The goal of the SPI STRise is studying problems of the energy transition more comprehensively in systems research and also to bring into the analyses social factors in addition to ecological and economical aspects. Partnering in this joint project with the University of Stuttgart are the Baden-Wuerttemberg Center for Solar Energy and H2 Research (ZSW) and the Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics (ITT) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Contact: Prof. Kai Hufendiek

Institute: Institute of Energy Economics and the Rational Use of Energy

In 2015 SRP NUPUS grew out of the PhD research group “Nonlinearities and upscaling in porous media” in which young scientists and graduate students exchanged different approaches to researching porous media. Special focus here is on the question of how liquids, gases, and particles spread in porous materials. The applications range from water research to batteries. Participating in the new consortium are universities and research institutes from Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Norway, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA.

Joint research in the areas of technology concepts, contexts, and analysis

IZST unites various institutes of the University of Stuttgart, the University of Tübingen and partners from industry. The goal is to initiate cooperative research between the two universities in the medical technology field or expand by partnering with medical technology companies. In this way, IZST provides the ideal research environment for the combined medical technology [de] degree program offered by the two universities. IZST partners join in teaching the program course, also – and especially – in supervising student research. The Center offers graduate students a favorable research project environment.